An Economic Evaluation System for Building Construction Projects in the Conceputal Phase

The conceptual phase of capital projects is of strategic importance an economic evaluation at this early stage is critical to the owners’ decision-making with limited information. The current study developed a comprehensive but practical system that can be used in such an early phase for economic evaluation of capital building construction projects. The system integrates four analytical steps: project planning, construction costs estimation, projection of incomes and expenditures, and economic evaluation. Due to the integration, the system effectively manages the information flow from the planning to the evaluation, in which any changes from the initial plan are fully accounted for multiple alternates. In the system, users predict construction cost using a combined estimating method with historical project data and assembly costs. The system performs the tabulation of all incomes and expenditures based on the automated calculation as well as users’ inputs and then the economic evaluation based on project cash flow, which is generated using an automated scheduling method. System performance has been tested in terms of its accuracy and efficiency through case study.